


wrOw this is edgy and poetic, even for me,,,

by sprinklyzucchini



Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: AU thats not really, Angst, F/M, M/M, just the layout of the world's different - and the myths, would i make sokka suffer twice let's find out
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-11
Updated: 2018-02-11
Packaged: 2019-03-16 20:20:16
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,644
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13643733
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sprinklyzucchini/pseuds/sprinklyzucchini
Summary: celestial AU. ?





	wrOw this is edgy and poetic, even for me,,,

**Author's Note:**

> technically i should tag as Zukka week since this accompanies that art i made for Day 6

_Moon_  
  


 

 

Most of her life, everything was overshadowed by the rush of her sickly blood in her veins, loud enough in her ears to block out everything else.

She thinks she was a princess once.

“You are,” Sokka tells her, the sharp blue of his eyes softening in the way they only did for her – but he couldn’t possibly know – couldn’t _possibly_ understand –

Yue was born with the Moon at her fullest, and she was born with its disease.

As a child, she remembers drowning in the backwaters that separated her village from the others, remembers washing up onshore, her hair bleached white and her blood almost singing in her ears. Remembers reintegrating herself into society, telling herself repeatedly – _I will not fail you, this time._

Who had she failed, though?

Sokka had been her friend, then her lover, all through this. He was brilliant, an actual mad genius, weighed down by the battles that plagued their tribes through the years. A chief’s son, he had responsibilities – and so did she.

When she last saw him, she knew she was nearing the end of this life.   
His fingers, rough and knobbly, contrasted against the white of her hair as he whispered against her feverish brow – _I’m coming back, we’ll fix this, I love you,_ and a hundred other things that made her heart swell (dangerously.)

 _Thank you_ , she tells him, _I will always love you,_ she doesn’t add.

She is bedridden, but she swears she can hear their ships being buoyed out to sea, waves lapping against the sides. She wants to protect them still. But how can she, with the way she is?

The last thing she remembers is praying to the Lunar Spirit, furious – for the first time, she can’t ever recall being this angry about her waning life –

_Keep them safe. Keep him safe –_

The Moon is full that night, and it pulls her sickly blood, and her sickly existence towards Her – away from the mortals.

____

_Stars_

 

 

 _A Child chosen by the Celestial spirits is cursed with their ills –_  
The Lunar Spirit shall control their essence like the tide;  
The Solar Spirit shall have them burn everything, miles wide.

Sokka is not a stranger to these half-forgotten myths, it’s just that he – well, it’s a load of hogwash.

He believes that the earth rotating creates day and night, that the Moon is just a beautiful hunk of rock orbiting their world, which in turn orbits the Sun. Seasons exist, but he can tell mostly by whenever the neighboring tribes fight over common lands.

The Fire Tribes are a nuisance, their disgusting bigot of a leader even more so.

Even as he loves the strategizing and tactical brilliance of his plans, he has no love for the practicality. War is illogical. He was raised to be a commander though – and command he did.  
Until he was off on a mission in the seas, and the love of his life took her last breath back home.

He can’t look at the Moon now, too full of regret and anger and grief.

Yue was strong, the silent kind, and caring, more beautiful than moonlight glinting off the annual snow – and she never seemed a martyr even though she described herself as such.   
Maybe she had been. Maybe he was, too.

And now she had joined the stars, or that’s what Gran-Gran told him – he didn’t want to believe it, because the stars were distant, and their death a worse affair, but he still couldn’t help mapping out lines between them.

\--

He is no stranger – perhaps an old friend, instead – to curiosity.

It’s curious indeed that a volcano dormant for years, should erupt – but it does, and nearly burns down a village (if it hadn’t been for his and Aang’s timely warning that is) – so he goes to investigate.

And…

“Oh wow this looks pretty spirit-y to me.” Aang, ever the superstitious type.

But he can’t exactly deny that claim, not when they stumble across some guy, naked as the day they were born, skin smoldering and hair ashy-black. He’s crouching, trying to keep his face hidden –

“Take him in for questioning.” Sokka pulls a hood over the stranger’s head when robing them with his cloak, trying not to look at the blood between the fingers clutching at their face. Aang’s frown isn’t reassuring by any means, either.

\--

Zuko is as pretty a Fire Tribesperson as they… well, Sokka doesn’t think prettiness can just subscribe to one nation. Zuko doesn’t seem to be a huge supporter of his tribe, either.

“I was chosen to be cursed, and I ran away. I don’t want to go back. I’ve said this three times already, what’s it going to take for you to fucking leave me alone.”

He sure talks a lot. Especially when he’s worked up.   
Sokka lets him go a week after.   
When asked why – and Zuko looked so bewildered –   
“Well, I’m a _people_ person.”

\--

Katara grieves for Yue in a way he’ll probably never understand. She stares at the Moon almost – he’d say hungrily, works at night under her blessing, and he will never mention this to anyone but she cries too, and it always _always_ coincides with the full moon.   
She is wary of the newest addition to their ragtag group, and the slowest to forgive him for his (alleged) family’s crimes. When she makes a comment about Sokka “always picking the interesting strays” in a fit of anger – her eyes are ice.

Maybe he isn’t much of a people person after all.

Aang and Suki are merciless with their questions, and when Toph visits, she takes one sniff at him and declares a challenge – and through it all… Zuko smiles, and his hair is sometimes iridescent when it catches the Sun’s rays just right.

It takes Sokka three years to admit that maybe the smirks Zuko send his way aren’t just challenging. Maybe the constriction in his chest had something to do with the way Zuko’s face was lit up under the Lights, eerie and beautiful and happy, his hand (scarred, also) in Sokka’s.

Sokka tries to drop in a kiss on him when they’re sparring – now that he’s retired and free to pursue what or whoever the fuck doesn’t bore him – but he misses by several inches.

Doesn’t really matter because Zuko realizes what he was trying to do, and kisses him, scalding and wet and _perfect_ _–_ spirits, this spells trouble.

But it still doesn’t matter when Sokka takes him to bed, and sparks fly out of his mouth when Sokka thrusts into him at just the correct angle – doesn’t matter when they are tangled like that, and he can brush Zuko’s sooty hair from his sweat-slicked skin and think,

_I can’t fail you._

\--

Zuko’s smiles turn sadder ever since, his kisses more desperate.

\--

_Sun_

 

Izumi likes the dark, likes the ringing solitude, the comforting suffocation of shadows.

So of course, it stands to reason that she would be plucked out next for their meaningless sacrifice. In fact, its lack of meaning makes it even more tragic. She doesn’t want to die for something she doesn’t believe in – remembers Zuko ranting about the same thing, all those years ago.

Her heart squeezes for a moment. Here she is, sixteen and of age – weighed down with useless fucking robes that would cease to matter once she was thrown into – oh _flames and embers_ , she could already see the jagged maw of the volcano, and her imagination supplied the rest.

She can’t even pretend the chief isn’t doing this solely because Zuko, the infamous failure of a prince, adopted her. Infamous only according to majority of the tribe, of course, because she can’t possibly connect the rumors to the man – father, brother, friend – she knows.

Izumi was born into the higher circle of hierarchy in their tribe, and she’d run away from all of it. She’d found, or rather – was found by Zuko. In the shadows.

He seemed to like it there himself.

She rolls her eyes at the cruel irony. A brief reprieve from the terror that’s making her whole body shake. Anything to ignore the way her stomach twists when five years since, she once again sees the lava lapping against the craggy sides of the volcano, low and volatile.

“Rise.”

A pair of hands push her in the back, and she closes her eyes to see the cool dark for a last time, but it’s streaked with violent reds and yellows instead.

And she falls.

\--

Izumi misses the dark.

Misses the ringing solitude, because newly heightened senses just don’t work for that.   
Growing things and fading life can be… noisy.

Misses the shadows most of all, because she banishes them (not permanently, she would discover) wherever she goes.

Okay, so she’s mightily pissed off that… it’s true. All of that nonsense. In a way, at least.

She wonders if the tribe knows what happens to their exalted sacrificial lambs, if they know they take on powers like. Well, like the sun. For a horrifying moment, she knows she is an anomaly there – but never matter. She had to escape her hometown – not much a brilliant one, to be honest; she had business elsewhere.

All this sacrificial-godly-magic bullshit _is_ actually congruent with some of what she believes in. Her instincts tell her the same thing over and over –

_At no time, may there be a Celestial Spirit divided._

Izumi still reels with the thought of Zuko being al _ive_ , Agni, she thought the volcano had seen the last of him. But she can sense him.

(He’s burning out. She doesn’t dwell on that, because anticipated grief is painful.)

She reaches her destination after seven grueling months, and can remember being afraid to see her friend, for the first time.

What if –

\--

The death of a star is something tragic to witness.

**Author's Note:**

> :')?


End file.
